Freelancing is great - you get to work on lots of different types of programmes, meet new people, and no day is the same. Working from home is also great - you can make your own hours, spend more time with your family, (have your husband bring you coffee all day...) avoid public transport in rush hour and stay in your "inside clothes" all day if you want (maybe that's just me). Another benefit to working from home is having all your own equipment and software set to your own preferences. Everything is set up to make things easiest and most efficient for you.

On the days you need to go to another facility to work, sessions can start slowly and be tricky. You may not be familiar with their desk (you should have seen me the first time I mixed on an S6..!). You may not be familiar with their outboard gear, their patch bay, the company's networking, their storage and backup systems... the list goes on! Troubleshooting without someone from the facility’s tech support can make you feel like a superhero sometimes (no? just me?). But at least you know Pro Tools right?

When I started out working at a facility full-time, I was lucky that all studios and sessions' preferences within the facility were mostly set up the same. When I went freelance, I realised that a lot of what I thought where “default” settings were not so "default" and I learnt pretty quickly that not everyone likes things the same way! SO. In this article, I am going to share which Pro Tools settings I check before I start a new job in a new facility to hopefully help you not hit a brick wall.

Some of these settings will interrupt your workflow significantly if ticked/unticked. Others will simply slow you down and stress you out if you don't know what option changes what! Some will even make you have to re-do hours of work.

Options

Automation Follows Edit

This can either be changed in the Options window or can be toggled on/off using its button below the Grabber Tools in your toolbar (the orange button below – this is 'off')

I'm putting this one first as it has massively screwed me over in the past as a junior editor when I either didn't know this option existed or simply didn't notice the orange button... stressed out some mixers in the process!

With this on/ticked (with the button BLUE) it means that any automation; whether that be volume, pan, mute, plugin automation; will move with the audio region. If you want to move further down the timeline for example, or to another track entirely.

With it off/unticked (ORANGE – presumably to stand out as it can cause hell if not intentionally off!) the automation stays where it is when the region is moved and the region will take the automation of its destination. This has its uses of course – if you want to try different sound effects but keep the same reverb and panning, or if you are auditioning different music tracks in situ quickly and want to keep the volume automation etc, this can be a godsend not having to re-do all the parameters each time (or copy and paste them a thousand times). However, If you are re-conforming multiple finished mixes into one session for a 'best of' compilation episode for example (this may or may not have happened to me) - not so much. Trust me. Also if you have some effects/sound design/music stings that occur multiple times in a show, you'd presumably want them to sound the same each time so will want this switched ON.

Next, the "Preferences" window from the “Setup" menu:

Operation

Transport:

'Edit Insertion Follows Scrub/Shuttle' - With this ticked, when you scrub through an audio selection, the cursor stays where you release the mouse rather than flicking back to where it was before you started the scrubbing. Not a biggie, but the first time I was editing in a studio with this unticked I didn't know the setting existed, and couldn't figure out what was happening! It made finding clicks in the dialogue really infuriating.

Auto Backup - I'm going to assume you all know what this setting does, and of course one would assume this would always be 'on' and set to something useful like 5 or 10 minutes. But I was mixing a few years ago in a room where the previous mixer had a corrupt session. Every time the session automatically saved, Pro Tools froze for about 8 seconds. So he eventually disabled it completely and made sure so save manually every so often. Long story short - it stayed "off" and I had to re-do 6 hours of work in 4 hours when my session crashed and work crazy fast the next day to catch up.

Misc - Clip Auto Fade In/Out - OK, I don't check this one very often, but it is something to consider If you like to have hard cuts and often leave audio regions without any fades. With this set to 0ms, you may hear unwanted clicks, especially atmospheres and music, and thumps on anything that is particularly low-end heavy.

Processing

Import

'Automatically Copy Files on Import' - This does what it says on the tin. I choose to untick this when dialogue editing and pulling in alternative takes so that the files can be imported without copying into my session's 'audio files' folder. My session will then relink to file's original location - in this instance, an external hard drive containing all the audio rushes. This is obviously useful to save storage on a local drive, whether this is for your dialogue edit, or bringing in multiple sound effects to audition in situ before making a decision. As long as you remember to do a 'save copy in' before delivering your session. However, if working at a facility where the sessions move around studios and are worked on by multiple people without doing a 'save copy in', or if you are just sending someone your session with effects etc in the clip files even if currently not on the timeline, or move your session from drive to drive, REMEMBER TO TICK THIS. Missing audio files are never fun when a mix is on a deadline. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Setup

Playback Engine H/W Buffer Size

If on a low setting (32, 64, 128 samples) then you may have DAE playback errors when working in a session with lots of bussing or insert plugins etc. This is because your computer needs more time for processing. Higher buffer sizes (512, 1024 samples) achieves this. However, if you are recording a voiceover, for example, you will want a low buffer size to reduce latency and echo in your artist's headphones if you aren’t working on an HDX system.

Disk Allocation

This is where any newly recorded file on each track is located. This includes rendered files using Audiosuite plugins and consolidating tracks. It's best to check that your session folder is selected here as you can run into trouble moving sessions around, or 'saving as' in different locations. As with the 'automatically copy file' setting earlier, the worst thing is changing suites/drives/buildings/facilities and seeing those three dreaded words... “Missing Audio Files”. If you hold down shift you can select more than one track at a time (I usually select all).

Memory Locations

If you're anything like me, when you want to mark something up, you just quickly hit enter on the numeric keypad, type something in, and swiftly hit enter again and carry on editing/mixing. It wasn't until last year that I realised that you can set which tracks are in view when you recall a memory location. I wanted to paste the same sound effect multiple times along the timeline and every time I recalled a location, my cursor went to different tracks, and my effects tracks hid themselves. How annoying. This was because I had the 'Track Visibility' option ticked when I went to create my memory location – defaulted presumably from a previous session in the studio – and I didn't notice.

At the time, I didn't know this option existed and so continued to input markers with different track visibility. But even since knowing the option is there, because I don't really look at the screen when typing in my markers and miss that the options are ticked (same goes for 'Track Height' etc), it can be really annoying once the markers are already created and you can't just clock a location, paste, and repeat. So now I check these options the first time I put a marker in a new session.

What Settings And Preferences Do You Check?

There are obviously lots of other settings and options that make my life easier, but I wanted to give you a list ones to check at a new facility so that you can have a smoother session from the get-go. Let us know what others you check before starting work in a different studio.